Municipal Blondes
10
Breakout
THAT MFSOB! If he weren’t dead, I’d find him and kill him myself.
Decryption
I found the combination of 32 characters that, when put together in the right order, made a 512-bit encryption key. If you are interested, it is 15b41d13f8ed2d1e36db00b5e18d2b3e. Here’s a bit of advice. If you get hold of this MF thumb drive, don’t enter the encryption key!
Fortunately, the damage was limited.
I was being lazy and too excited that I’d found a possible breakthrough to be careful. Dag had plugged the thumb drive into Simon’s computer even though it might have an ill effect on the computer. It was isolated behind a million layers of firewall and protection, so we tried. I decided to take security on level higher when I started working on this and did a bit-by-bit copy onto a new thumb drive. It’s just standard. We always work with backups and I think there’s even another in the vault. I hadn’t looked for it, so it was just as easy to burn a new one. I don’t have Simon’s computer now, so I put the new thumb drive in Dag’s laptop.
You have to understand that Dag’s laptop (Lars gave it to me after the hospital gave it up) doesn’t have anything on it but the routines he used to connect to the virtual private network. It doesn’t connect to anything automatically, so it’s a pretty safe clean computer.
I sat in the office carefully inserting the drive, getting the dialog to enter the encryption key, and trying the next one on my list. These are hexadecimal keys, so there aren’t any capital letters. Each character is a number from zero to fifteen. It’s pretty common in encryption keys. But you have to be exact, so I worked slowly. I didn’t have to try them all. I hit pay dirt about three-quarters of the way through the list. The dialog box closed and for a minute I wasn’t sure what to think. I launched a directory window and took a look at the files on the drive. One executable.
Everybody with an elementary education knows not to launch an unknown executable on your computer. I adjusted the directory settings to show hidden files. Voila! I could see dozens of files but they were all still encrypted!
That’s when all hell broke loose.
The screen dissolved into a lot of little dots and resolved itself into a moving tickertape message. The message was juvenile at best.
“Simon says, ‘Find me if you can.’ All the clues are here. Everything you wanted to know. I never expected you to get this far but I’m not making it any easier to uncover the secrets contained on this drive. It’s too bad you’re colorblind, Dag!”
You are dead, bastard. And so is Dag. How dare you taunt me from the grave?
The screen dissolved again and a new message appeared. “Press Esc to continue.”
Everything else on the computer was locked. Nothing responded. I pressed Esc. The message that returned said simply, “You lose! Simon didn’t say ‘Press Esc.’” What a childish game he was playing. Or so I thought. The screen rewrote with rolling text. It didn’t take long to realize it was deleting all the files on the disk, starting with the thumb drive and proceeding to the laptop. It was totally wiped in seconds. I unplugged, disconnected, ultimately had to pull the battery on the laptop in order to stop the action, but the damage was done. I had to reformat the laptop and start it back from scratch. Fortunately, the bios wasn’t damaged. The thumb drive, once destroyed was worthless. It had no file directory on it and showed as empty. I ran a few recovery tools and it’s possible I could have recovered it but there’s no real need to. It was a copy.
It’s two in the morning. I’m going home. I’ll take Maizie with me and go to sleep. At this hour, no one will know she’s there. I’ve got other things to attend to tomorrow.
Travel funds
Some things have to be done face-to-face. I had no doubt that if I simply asked Angel how she helped people move money, I would get a straight perfectly accurate answer that was worthless. Might as well Google it. The only thing I could think of was to take a wad of cash into her office and get cash cards. Except she couldn’t know it was me.
I disguised myself as a male. It took about two hours to get the mustache and hair on correctly. It had to be perfect because I had to look like my ID. This hair was glued on a transparent latex base. It’s a baldpate fringe. When people look for a disguise, they focus on the forehead. A flip of your hair in the wrong direction will show the wig foundation. They don’t see a line at the forehead on me, so they don’t look at the fringe of hair I glue on to look like a man with a really receding hairline. It’s better if I have Stevie help me with this. She’s a master. She’s the most intimately acquainted with my head and my various wigs as my hair dresser and confidant. She’s a former theatrical makeup artist as well and has helped me into any number of disguises. Today, though, I was all on my own.
I suited up in a houndstooth tweed jacket with a turtleneck shirt and a sweater. If you aren’t stacked—as if I’d ever have to worry about that—the easiest way to hide your boobs is with bulky clothes. It’s December and it’s cold out, so that doesn’t look strange. I’ve got an undervest that is padded to fill the valleys and give me just a little more breadth in the shoulders. Don’t forget the fingernails. I keep mine short anyway but make sure all signs of polish have been stripped away and the nails are dull, not shiny. Unless I get strip-searched, no one can tell they aren’t looking at a man. The final thing to add is just a hint of shadow around the cheeks. Even when a man is clean shaved, he normally has hair growing on his cheeks that affects the color of his face. I needed the appearance of manliness that diverts attention away from the narrowness of my nose. Finally, I added a pair of steel rimmed glasses. They’re slightly tinted and make it harder to see my eyes.
When I was done, I checked my appearance against the photo I had on my James Whitcomb passport. I was a match and even looking in the closeup mirror, I couldn’t tell I had makeup on. It was showtime.
I debated a while on the amount of money I should take with me. One of the first things I discovered in the vault was a stash of cash Dag kept for just this kind of operation. There was a lot more than I would need. I carefully counted out $12,000 in hundred-dollar bills. I didn’t want to be too loaded but from what I’d observed at Angel’s office, I needed to have a significant amount of cash to transfer.
I drove over to Dag’s apartment and let Maizie in through the secret door without going into the apartment. I didn’t need Mrs. Prior asking questions right now. Fortunately, she was out and I slipped in and out in no time.
I parked in the Macy’s lot and walked six blocks to Angel’s travel agency. It’s a little mindboggling to walk naturally through a non-great part of town with twelve grand in your briefcase. I elected not to use a bag with a strap because that too often signals a woman. I just kept my head up and strode along with purpose.
I felt a frisson of anxiety as I turned onto her block and disciplined myself not to look around for threats. The best defense is alert confidence. At any rate, I made it to Angel’s door a little before noon.
I was in the lioness’s den. Approaching it from this side of the counter, it looked considerably different than it had when I observed her operation from the other side. She had taken all requests for cash cards into a private office. I approached the counter. I thought Angel looked stressed but the moment she looked up at me, her expression changed to absolute charm and hospitality. When Angel switches on her sex appeal, it even affects me. She’s that kind of gal.
“Good morning. How may I help you?” she smiled at me.
“Morning,” I said quietly. Bravado is not the right mode for me when I’m playing a man. I pitched my voice a little lower and softer than my normal. Angel instinctively leaned in closer. “I need to buy a cash card for vacation. I heard you sold them.”
“You heard right,” she replied easily. “How much would you like to put on your card?”
“Would $12,000 be all right?” I asked.
“Sure,” Angel said, leaning over and flashing an abundance of cleavage my way. No wonder men drool over her. She came back up with a form and pushed it to me over the counter. She seemed to be looking past me part of the time and it gave me the feeling that I should turn around and look at what was outside her window. Instead, I shifted my focus to look at the surface of my tinted glasses. I could see the reflection behind me but no one was there that I could tell. I did see the shadow of two or three people pass by the window but no one stopped.
“You need to fill out this form completely and I’ll need your ID, she smiled. I hemmed a little bit as I scanned the form. This was a government form and I wasn’t crazy about writing down the information they asked for.
“Is there a way to do this without all the paperwork?” I asked quietly. “I have poor handwriting.”
“Are you now or have you ever been associated in any way with any branch of law enforcement at local, State, or National level?” Angel surprised me with the question.
“I got a parking ticket once,” I confessed. “Does that qualify?”
“A simple yes or no is the only answer I want.”
“No.” Angel went from intense to welcoming again. “What’s the big deal?”
“You cannot lie to me about that and use anything we say or do as evidence in a legal case,” she responded. “Even if it is being recorded on a wire.” My mouth worked of its own accord in stuttering denial. “Just hand me your wallet and passport as if we were conducting business normally,” she said, “and then step through the door over here to my office. We’ll complete your transaction there.”
I fished my wallet out of a back pocket and my passport out of my jacket. I pushed them through the grate to her and obediently waited while she went around a partition. That’s another part about an effective disguise—accessories. You need foolproof identity, of course. I’d learned in an elementary class with Lars how to get identification. But the big issue in pulling out a wallet or getting searched was what was in it and what it looked like. I’d picked up my wallet at a Goodwill store when I first started putting this identity together. There were three signed credit cards in the worn wallet that I’d made sure were worn enough to look used. They were legit, but none had ever carried a balance after activation. They all had expiry dates several months apart. There were also a few easy to acquire membership cards—grocery store, sports club, frequent flyer—and business cards, both my own and a car dealer where I’d had work done, an accountant, and another professor. Some were tattered and had numbers written on the back. The piece de resistance was an official-looking photo ID with a reader chip, identifying me as a faculty member at a local university. The card wouldn’t get you through a door at the university but it looked official. And cash, of course. Forty-seven dollars in various denominations, well worn.
A moment later there was a soft buzz and I pulled the door open to walk through. My identity was apparently sufficient for her.
I don’t know what I expected Angel’s inner office to look like. She’d taken only two of her several customers into it the day I observed and I couldn’t see in. It looked more like a psychiatrist’s office than a banker’s. A small table with two chairs, a short sofa, and an easy chair facing it. A floor lamp provided illumination, even though there was an overhead fluorescent turned off.
The room was also dead. Closing the door behind me cut out all outside noise. When Angel spoke, her voice barely crossed the room to me. I sat on the sofa where she directed me.
“You’re new at this, aren’t you?” she said. I nodded. “I like to bring new customers in here to explain the menu and to counsel. Privacy is best for our transactions. I assume you have cash to purchase your cards with?” Again, I nodded. “Well, James, there are restrictions the Federal government has imposed on cash transactions. Any transaction over $5,000 has to be reported on one of those forms you were concerned about. We’ll break your purchase down into smaller chunks that I can report without arousing suspicion. There is the small matter of transporting money in excess of $10,000 out of the country. It’s not illegal, but it is supposed to be reported. Do you understand the problems we have?” I was determined not to speak unless I had to. For all I knew she was recording everything. I nodded again.
“All right,” Angel said. She moved out of the chair and sat on the sofa next to me, laying a hand on my shoulder. “My agency provides a world of special services to important travelers like you,” she purred. “Especially to travelers who need to move larger sums of money. I’ll bet this is just a sampling of the kind of money you want to take care of, isn’t it?” I considered a moment then ever-so-slightly nodded, turning my face away slightly.
“Sometimes you have to travel. What do you teach, Mr. Whitcomb? Or should I say Professor?” she asked.
“Literature. Uh… just Mr.” I wasn’t comfortable with Angel getting any closer.
“No tenure, huh? The bastards.” I couldn’t believe the way Angel was playing me. She was seducing me into her web—becoming a sympathetic co-conspirator. She moved closer and I decided I had to get space between us. I moved away a bit and turned to her.
“No offense, Miss,” I said softly. “I’m not comfortable with women. I prefer… well, you know.” When rejecting a sexy woman, the gay card is the best one to play. Angel got the message immediately. She moved back to her chair.
“Oh, don’t worry, James,” she said. “We can still be friends and you’ll find I still have a lot of services I can offer you.” There was a subtle change in Angel’s gestures and her coyness. A flick of the wrist. A new tilt to her shoulders and erectness to her posture. Her voice came down a notch as well and had a subtle sound of being softened, as though she was just pretending to be a girl. In an instant she had transformed herself from sex goddess to drag queen. I was learning more about Angel than I ever imagined. But I still needed to know how the money operation worked.
“Thank you,” I said. “You are an angel. How can I get my money to Europe without arousing suspicion? There’s nothing illegal about it,” I hastened to add. “An inheritance, you see.”
She cut me off.
“I don’t need to know where it came from,” she said. “I’m not complicit to any source of income no matter what you do. I’ll help get it to a transportable form for you. Now, here’s what we’re going to do to solve your little problem. When there’s a lot of money, everyone wants a piece of it,” she continued. “I’m not a bargain basement deal but I am high quality. We’ll get your money on separate cash cards and you’ll have immediate, untraceable access to it in Europe, or anywhere else you want to travel—Asia, South America, or even Australia. And you get all my services for just twenty percent. If you want me to arrange traveling companionship or special transportation, that’s extra. Doesn’t twenty percent sound like a good deal to you?” She barely waited for my nod before she went on.
“What I’m going to do is give you two $5,000 cash cards. You’re going to pay me $2,000 for them. Oh! Look at that. It comes out to exactly $12,000! That will be convenient. I’ll report it as three separate transactions. No paperwork. I’ll even report it on different days so there is no indication you were here with a lot of money on one day. All you need to do is key in your PIN on the card reader so I can program your cards. You know all the rules about PINs, right? Don’t make it your birthday or an obvious pattern. Be sure you remember it because we aren’t going to write it down anyplace. Future transactions—You will back to do business with me again, won’t you?—will be much simpler. You’ll come to the counter and tap in your PIN. I’ll take the money and slide a new card through the printer. When you travel, any card will work in the vast network of ATM machines around the world that bear one of these logos.”
I was pretty overwhelmed by the time I walked out of the store, $12,000 lighter in my briefcase with two new money cards—one in my wallet and one slipped into my briefcase on Angel’s advice. I didn’t understand why but she indicated I should not carry my cards too close, even though they had different branding on them. Who was going to find out? Finally, she pushed a handful of travel brochures about various places in Europe into my hand.
Dangerous liaison
I soon found the answer to my question. I was walking up Cherry St. from Angel’s agency when a red-haired man stepped out from a doorway in front of me, flashed a badge and said, “I’d like to speak with you for a moment, sir.”
I was facing Jordan Grant in his official capacity as a FinCEN officer.
“Did I do something wrong, officer?” I asked quietly.
“We don’t think so but we are investigating the agency you were just in. Would you mind telling me the nature of your business there?”
“Should I have a lawyer present?” I asked.
“We could go through all that,” he said, “but I haven’t even asked your name. At the moment, I’d prefer to keep our questions friendly and off the record. I’d just like to know what kind of business is conducted there.”
“Well, that’s easy enough,” I answered. “It’s a travel agency. I’m going to Europe this summer on sabbatical. I’m a teacher.”
“And the woman in the agency is making your travel arrangements?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied respectfully. I held up the brochures I still held in my hand. “Italy is going to be magnificent in July. Hot but magnificent. When you are on a school-year calendar, you have to go when you can go,” I added confidentially. Jordan, I knew, required a little more male-to-male bonding than I could get away with if he’d been female. The time with Angel was exhausting. This was a breeze.
“And does she charge a lot for travel arrangements?” he asked.
“Well, yes,” I said frankly. “I thought for a while she wanted to go with me but—dare I say?—you’re more my type.” Jordan took an automatic step backward. “Really,” I hastily continued, “if she puts together a whole trip package for me based on what I told her, gets me into the Vatican Library and arranges a private tour of the major sites with a native Italian speaker, I think it will be worth it.”
“Sounds like it will be a good deal for both of you,” Jordan answered. His attention was already distracted by someone down the street and when I turned, I saw Angel leaving the agency for lunch. I did not want to be seen talking to Jordan.
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
“No,” he answered shortly. “You’ve been very helpful. Thanks.” With that, he simply walked away in the direction Angel had gone and I continued back to my car.
Whew!
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
